Gentle Wins 8th Noosa Title; Willian Edges Free by Six Seconds
Ashleigh Gentle remains the Queen of the Noosa Triathlon, adding an 8th title to her career-long dominance at the event. Gentle overcame a minute-plus deficit after the bike leg with a race-best 34:22 run to take the crown.
Gentle crossed the line in 2:00:36 with a 27 second margin over Milan Agnew and 1:02 over Sophie Malowiecki.
After extending her record Noosa win total, Gentle expressed relief that her late race comeback was successful. “It means a lot, sometimes I honestly don’t know how I pull it off, “she told Noosa media. “I felt pretty terrible out there in sections, Milan and Sophie were racing so well so congratulations to them, they did amazing, I was pushed to the very end and I’m just pretty relieved actually.”
Luke Willian of Brisbane held off a late charge by Nicholas Free to win the 38th edition of this classic event by 6 seconds margin and 10 seconds over third-place finisher Lorcan Redmond.
“I’m over the moon, you grow up as a little kid watching this race and to win it has always been my dream, it’s the cherry on top,” Willian told Noosa media.
Men’s Recap
Willian was in the lead pack all day, taking second behind Matthew Roberts and in a tight pack with Charlie Quinn and Josh Amberger out of the water. The leading pack increased on the bike as Roberts (54:17), Willian (54:12), Josh Ferris (54:13), Caleb Noble (54:09), Amberger (54:12), Simon Hearn (53:59), Steven McKenna (53:50), Lorcan Redmond (54:24) Nicholas Free (54:25), Tim Van Berkel (53:41) and Simon Hearn (53:59) arrived at T2 in a massive bunch.
On his way to a third-best 30:10 run split, Willian battled it out with Lorcan Redmond (29:55 run split), Quinn (30:39 run), Redmond (29:55) and Caleb Noble (30:38) before making a charge to take the win. After a race-best 29:33 run, Free charged into second place at the line, six seconds behind Willian and 4 seconds ahead of third-place Lorcan Redmond.
Willian offered a detailed look at his race strategy: “The swim was crystal clear, you could see the rocks at the bottom at the far turn buoy, it was absolutely beautiful, that’s why you come to Noosa,” Willian told Noosa media. “On the bike we had a little group and made sure we were all working hard and we were all pulling real solid turns to keep the gap that we worked really hard on the swim to get. Then on the run we had a bit of a gap but not a lot, at the halfway mark I was starting to sting a bit and I could see that the young guys were coming from behind and looked like they were going to go again and I worked really solid all the way home and held them off and got the job done.”
Willian embraced the thrill of winning his first Noosa “It’s amazing, I love this race, I think I’ve raced here for six years now, it’s been a while since I’ve got close to the podium. My first years I got a fourth and a fifth and I’ve kind of been a bit fried by the end of the year and missed out in the last couple of years. It’s always been the goal to win so to come back after a year off [due to the Covid cancellation] and get the job done is absolutely amazing.”
Women’s Recap
Australia-based Dutch athlete Lotte Wilms led the women after a 19:43 split for the 1.5k swim, which gave her a 13 seconds lead on Malowiecki, 17 seconds on Agnew and 22 seconds on Gentle.
The four surged to the front and after a women’s-best 1:00:39 bike split Malowiecki led Agnew by 7 seconds, Gentle by 1 minute, and Wilms by 1:12.
“It was a pretty lonely race for me to be honest because I came out of the water just behind Sophie and Milan, and Lotte and Lauren were 20 seconds or so ahead of us which was really good because Lotte is an amazing swimmer so I was happy with my position,” Gentle told Noosa media. ”But my god Milan and Sophie just went off so fast and I feel like for most of the bike ride we weren’t actually riding too dissimilar a pace. They just took it out really fast and were really aggressive on the bike and I probably lost a bit of time towards the backend coming back into town. Apart from a couple of little passes I was all on my own so I just tried to keep motivated and hope that they didn’t get too much of a gap and tried to keep faith in my run.”
On the run, Gentle passed Agnew to take the lead with 3k left, finishing with a dominating 34:22 run split to finish in 2:00:36 with a 27 seconds lead on Agnew (35:28 run) and 1:02 on 3rd place Malowiecki (36:21 run split).
Gentle pointed out that conditions were challenging for everyone. “The conditions were pretty tough. On the bike the wind was slowly starting to pick up towards the end and I definitely noticed it was pretty hard going on the run heading out. I know this course well so I tried to use that to my advantage and tried not to panic and just slowly build into it and somehow I found something to take the win.”
Gentle discussed how much she enjoyed the return to this locale after the 2020 cancellation due to Covid. “I love coming back to Noosa,” she said. “It makes me very happy and I just love sharing this event with thousands of people racing on the course but also on the sideline so thanks to everyone who gave cheers this morning it makes a difference and you make Noosa Tri what it is,” she said.
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In 1983, the godfather of Triathlon in Australia, Garth Prowd, gathered 180 tri athletes at Noosa. Now, 38 years later, Noosa claims to be the largest Olympic distance triathlon in the world. The 5-day festival, which includes 11 events, hosts over 13,000 competitors with 30,000 spectators on race days.
Noosa Triathlon
Noosa Heads Lions Park, Australia
October 31, 2021
S 1.5k / B 40k / R 10k
Pro Men
1. Luke Willian (AUS) S 18:26 T1 1:23 B 54:12 T2 3:00 R 30:10 TOT 1:47:13
2. Nicholas Free (AUS) S 18:48 T1 1:29 B 54:25 T2 3:02 R 29:33 TOT 1:47:219
3. Lorcan Redmond (AUS) S 18:50 T1 1:20 B 54:24 T2 2:53 R 29:55 TOT 1:47:23
4. Charlie Quinn (AUS) S 18:26 T1 1:24 B 54:35 T2 2:238 R 30:39 TOT 1:47:44
5. Caleb Noble (AUS) S 19:03 T1 1:35 B 54:09 T2 3:02 R 30:38 TOT 1:48:30
6. Steven McKenna (AUS) S 19:16 T1 1:32 B 53:50 T2 3:05 R 31:33 TOT 1:49:18
7. Matthew Roberts (AUS) S 18:21 T1 1:23 B 54:17 T2 3:00 R 32:28 TOT 1:49:31
8. Josh Amberger (AUS) S 18:27 T1 1:26 B 54:12 T2 3:07 R 32:37 TOT 1:49:50
9. Josh Ferris (AUS) S 18:55 T1 1:33 B 54:13 T2 3:03 R 32:09 TOT 1:49:55
10. Simon Hearn (AUS) S 19:15 T1 1:31 B 53:59 T2 3:08 R 32:11 T OT 1:50:06
15. Tim Van Berkel (AUS) S 19:23 T1 1:36 B 53:41 T2 3:09 R 33:56 TOT 1:51:47
Pro Women
1. Ashleigh Gentle (AUS) 20:05 T1 1:40 B 1:01:09 T2 3:18 R 34:22 TOT 2:00:36
2. Milan Agnew (AUS) S 20:00 T1 1:36 B 1:00:46 T2 3:11 R 35:28 TOT 2:01:03
3. Sophie Malowiecki (AUS) S 19:56 T1 1:32 B 1:00:39 T2 3:08 R 36:21 TOT 2:01:38
4. Jessie Ewart-McTigue (AUS) S 21:18 T1 1:33 B 1:01:33 T2 3:11 R 36:58 TOTR 2:04:34
5. Ellie Hoitink (AUS) S 20:07 T1 1:41 B 1:02:15 T2 3:19 R 37:49 TOT 2:05:12
6. Lotte Wilms (NED) S 19:43 T1 1:50 B 1:01:51 T2 3:34 R 39:18 TOT 2:06:18
7. Kirra Seidel (AUS) S 21:24 T1 1:41 B 1:03:24 T2 3:24 R 37:25 TOT 2:07:19
8. Georgie Fredricks (AUS) S 20:36 T1 1:30 B 1:04:05 T2 3:08 R 38:27 TOT 2:07:48
9. Maighan Brown (AUS) S 21:20 T1 1:39 B 1:03:36 T2 3:19 R 38:45 TOT 2:08:40
10. Lauren Kenwick (AUS) S 19:51 T1 1:35 B 1:05:52 T2 3:18 R 40:01 TOT 2:10:39
